Imran Omer's Blog

Before the commencement of 20th century, the role of education was to inculcate moral and religious values. Since the dawn of the industrial era and particularly after the Second World War, education became more career oriented. Its value as a job grabber and a mode for competition for industrial and corporate positions has increased tremendously.  Gradually the process of providing values and morals, both worldly and religious, moved to the end of the list of objectives of education. Another problem with moral education is that it cannot be taught directly in the form of a sermon. When it is provided in the form of a sermon, as we usually see in the religious dogma, it produces fear and may convince the receivers to hide and sneak in their immoral behaviors, but it does not create an impact that is capable of convincing the receivers about its everlasting worthiness and its impact on their personal lives. Morality is like the  koan  of Zen. The Bodhisattva comprehends...

Natraja is one of the manifestations of Shiva, a major Hindu deity. Hinduism The origins of Hinduism are traced back to the Indus Valley Civilization, dated from 4000 to 2200 B.C.E. Though Hinduism is commonly viewed in the West as polytheistic (worship of multiple deities), it is more accurately described as henotheistic— the worship of a single deity with the recognition that other gods and goddesses are aspects or manifestations of that single deity. One god creates many personalities to represent its different aspects and worship of one is actually the worship of all. For the ongoing birth, preservation, and death of the cosmos and of the entities in it, there are three personalities of Brahma which are essential and which persistently keep creating this cycle  Brahama :  Creator who continues to create new realities Vishnu : Preserver, who preserves these creations. His most popular manifestation is Krishna. Shiva : Destroyer, who is sometimes compassionate and ero...

The above question is an important one for a society in which there is much to be done toward the appreciation and teaching of art. Is it really a waste of time for our students? Is it a subject that just tears them away for forty-five to fifty minutes from their core subjects? Or is it a subject that provides our students with some specific skills? You may say that as an Art teacher I am biased, but I firmly believe that art should be an integral part of our school system. Art Creates Understanding Art preceded writing. Though essential, writing is usually linear (except perhaps in literature), while art has offered multi-layer perceptions since its very inception. The cave paintings were not only paintings they represented stories and icons, and desires and ambitions. They were a communion with nature and showed fear of it. They were inspirations and dreams and revealed the urge to understand the place of humans among the forces of nature.   The understanding brough...

Urbanization in the Developing World The trend of rural populations moving toward cities has created huge problems in the urban societies of developing countries. In the year 2005, half of the world’s population was living in urban areas. In 1994, there were fourteen mega-cities (the cities that had at least ten million inhabitants). This number increased to thirty-seven in 2017. This migration of rural population to cities has created huge problems. SLUMS Due to this influx of population, cities are unable to provide amenities to all their residents and the growing slums have become centers of crime in the cities.  A report by the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT) says that some 96,150 housings units per day are required to avoid the urban crisis in the near future. Under the title “Financing Urban Shelter,” the same report says that more than two billion people would be added as city dwellers by 2030. To provide hou...

Nature, beautiful and sometimes stunning, has a great capacity to impress our hearts. These impressions often become a source of spiritual uplift and at times take a few of us to the heights of spiritual enlightenment. All religions insist on the sanctity of life, but in Buddhism this principal extends to connect an individual not only with all life but also with all Nature. In Buddhism, Nature is not merely a supply source for our material needs. The Earth is seen as a living entity, and therefore Nature has a dynamic role in our lives. This respect for nature is inherent in Buddhism not only because it is the basis for much of its teachings, but because Buddhism itself is a product of Nature. The American monk, Thomas Merton, writes about his personal transformation while he was at a forest monastery: “If we reside in nature and near trees and rocks we’ll discover feelings and thoughts arising that are truly out of the ordinary . . . the lessons nature teaches us lead to...

                                      Entangled Lives               Q. What was your motivation behind writing 'Entangled Lives' and when did you start writing it? A: Over the years, whenever I heard about terrorists and the conviction of going after them to the end of the word, I always thought about the lives they lived to commit all those acts of violence. Were they the only ones who as individuals were responsible? Or did those societies have something to contribute to the outcome we have seen on the world stage? And I didn't have to go very far to see the facets of the society in general, and the politics, both domestic and on the world stage, contributing to the violence they were committing. I was researching for Entangled Lives at the end of 2014, but I started working on it in 2015. Q. What all research did you do to write abou...